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I'll start us off with a fact that is a bit of a non fact (and an item of trivia about a TV star.)

Alan Turing, who helped shorten the war by breaking the German's Enigma code, was prosecuted for being gay (it was still illegal in the UK at the time) and was chemically castrated as an alternative to going to prison. He committed suicide some time later by eating an apple laced with cyanide. It had been suggested that the apple logo was a tribute to Turing but Steve Jobs, when asked about it by Stephen Fry some time ago, said that it wasn't true but that they wished to high heaven that it was.

Also, Anna Paquin, the woman who plays Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood, was the young girl with the geese in Fly away home.

I'll start us off with a fact that is a bit of a non fact (and an item of trivia about a TV star.)

Alan Turing, who helped shorten the war by breaking the German's Enigma code, was prosecuted for being gay (it was still illegal in the UK at the time) and was chemically castrated as an alternative to going to prison. He committed suicide some time later by eating an apple laced with cyanide. It had been suggested that the apple logo was a tribute to Turing but Steve Jobs, when asked about it by Stephen Fry some time ago, said that it wasn't true but that they wished to high heaven that it was.

Also, Anna Paquin, the woman who plays Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood, was the young girl with the geese in Fly away home.

He's on my list of historical figures I'd like to have dinner with, all of whom have last names starting with 'T':

A neutron star is so dense that one teaspoon (5 ml) of its material would have a mass over 5.5×1012 kg, about 900 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza (from wikipedia). Neutron stars can rotate as much as several hundred times per second.

The main gases in a fart – nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane – have no smell. The unpleasant smell of a fart is due to very tiny amounts of sulphur-containing gases, which have a smell disproportionate to their volume.

The vocals to Radiohead's Planet Telex were recorded by a drunk Thom Yorke while he was lying down.

FACT: He was just emulating John Lennon, who was so strung out on drugs during the recording of "I Am the Walrus" that they had to record him lying down because he couldn't stand up long enough to sing the song.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

A giant Cthulu alien just threw the top of Big Ben at Abraham Lincoln's airship.

Despite the fact that Watson and Crick are credited with discovering the structure of DNA, uncovering this little bit of scientific revelation was (and still is) considered all but inevitable by the time they got around to discovering it. There were many other scientists on the same track and most of them would have actually bet on multi-Nobel laureate Linus Pauling at being the first to finally crack the puzzle.

The kiss between Charlton Heston and Rosalind Cash in The Omega Man was one of the first interracial kisses (and interracial sexual relationships) portrayed on the big screen. Also, her naked butt was shown more than once and it was wonderful. (Mercifully, Heston's was not shown.)

GWJFFL Trophy Case:
Dynasty: 2012, 2013
Pro: 2013

Stele: "You're just afraid [Rat Boy]'s going to disappear for 2 years on us again"

So there is already a joke thread, and a number of "random" threads, mind avoiding "joke" facts and opinions on sports players?

There are so many joke answers already, I couldn't tell if some of the other facts interspersed (the Thom Yorke/John Lennon ones for example) were real without googling it, which defeats the purpose...

Music | Blog | RoughneckGeek: I stop reading a thread when Q-Stone becomes the voice of reason.